@DayTwoWebdesign You can be naive and say it is just a description afterward, most SEOs know that is just a safer way to include a few keywords in the anchor text.

I've been watching that page for awhile because I wanted to do one similar for my site/clients, not only because of the ability to pass PageRank, and anchor text, but also because It goes a long way in building potential client trust. I shouldn't have to link to my clients poorly just because I'm an SEO.

Eventually, I decided it was too risky for my blood...because - I've been watching that page for awhile, and initially(according to the google toolbar) it was passing page rank, then stopped for about a month or so, then started again. I "assumed" it came back because Rand had been doing a lot of blog posts and interaction with Matt Cutts around that time, and thought maybe he persuaded Matt to give it PageRank again - because they are friends.

Again, I personally don't think there should be anything wrong with it. I'm still reluctant about doing it for myself however.

Unfortunately, I feel like SEOs have to go out of their way to put together poor linking strategies when it comes to their own sites because they will be more closely scrutinized. Really, I think it is sad that many times we choose to perform poor SEO tactics on our own stuff, to minimize the risk from Google. Then when other SEO's recommend turning in your competitors, it makes it really hard to feel confident that anything you do isn't a violation of Google's TOS, and then become extremely paranoid.

This is Google's first bullet point on Link schemes:

"Examples of link schemes can include:

Links intended to manipulate PageRank"

How can any SEO perform thier job without violating the very first rule? If we aren't building links, doing PageRank sculpting, etc. etc. for our clients to help increase their ranking, and thus manipulate PageRank, then what the F are we doing it for?

That all makes reasonable sense. But, can you explain what makes this appropriate? http://www.seomoz.org/pages/seo-consulting#clients.

I'm not necessarily saying there should be anything wrong with it, however it is obviously a really expensive paid directory intended to boost rankings for particular keywords. If it wasn't, there would be no need to append a sentence containing keywords to each company name.

I believe that if I did the same thing and you reported me, I would very likely loose PageRank on that page and potentially my whole website. And perhaps the only reason you can get away with it is because you have a close relationship with Matt Cutts, and are a much larger name.

Perhaps you can shed some light on whether you feel that is acceptable practice for all SEO companies? And why?

Like I said, I don't necessarily think there should be anything wrong with it, however I do feel it is too risky for most of us smaller companies.

After taking a step back and reading this comment, I was reminded why I had such a problem with the mixed-messages being relayed on this site.

While I appreciate you taking the time to put this post together, which clarifies your stance on the topic; what about the client or potential client who never reads this particular post?

There are a few places on SEOmoz where, after reading, one might think SEOmoz actually recommends buying links. One such place is here: http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors#link-building. I think there were few other places people noted earlier in the comments too.

Thanks for putting together this post and responding to many of the comments. This post was necessary indeed! As you can see from above, I'm not the only one who, in the past, felt you were encouraging buying links.

I feel you have explained your stance well, and I agree with your overall take on this. Google is probably the only one who can truly clear it up further.

Regarding ethics: I too don't believe buying links is unethical, however if your business cannot survive without Google's backing then DON'T DO IT. Google has every right to promote you in their search results just like you have the right to promote someone on your website or not. It's just unfortunate they are inconsistent, and are harder on the little guy.

Advertising is advertising. If you want to advertise your business on another site you have every right to do it without fear of doing something unethical. We pay for advertising every day in television, posters, flyers, newspapers, pamphlets, magazine, radio, shirts, billboards, etc. Why should paying for visibility on the Internet be considered unethical? Because one company says if you do it like this we wont list you on our website?

I don't think so!

Even so, you'll probably want to staying away from link buying if the only thing you're worried about being listed in those websites.

Like someone else commented above - I think we sometimes forget Google is just part of the Internet and not the Internet itself. We all should worry about pleasing Google becaue they can deliver us a tremendous amount of business, however we should also be focusing on making sure we also get business elsewhere.

I'd agree with you here, except, it appears Google rarely penalizes the Brand names, whereas the little guy will get penalized in a heart beat. So no matter how much great content you provide, if your brand established competitors are buying links without penalty, and creating great content, they'll beat you out every time.